Archive for January, 2019

Liberals Ruin Everything

Monday, January 21st, 2019

Liberals have a reputation for ruining everything, because they do.

You do realize, don’t you, that they could avoid this reputation — even with their awful ideas — if they agreed to the implementation of those ideas with some kind of back-out plan if things don’t go the way they should. That’s the way you roll out a patch or a new application in a large-scale enterprise network. But they won’t. They want it to be like dumping an additive into the village water well; once it’s done, it’s done. You can put it in but you can’t suck it back out again. They want it like that every time.

They could avoid this reputation if they provided for some kind of opt-out, so that whoever doesn’t want their local well spiked can be given the option to say no thanks. But they won’t. Their ideas are so “good” they have to be forced.

Liberals Ruin EverythingThey could avoid this reputation if they agreed to a sunset option, with option to renew after some term. They almost never do this. They want that ratchet locked in place.

They could avoid this reputation if they didn’t work so hard to exert control over who’s allowed to vote, at what age, with what criminal record — if they could just accept the voting body for however they find it, and make their best pitch to it, like any reasonable sales or marketing professional. But they won’t. They have to do their “ballot harvesting,” their Motor-Voter, and they have to fight any voter ID requirements so we’re not allowed to know who’s voting.

They could avoid this reputation by firming up their list of ecological/cultural lists of offenses, so that it could remain static for a little while. But no. Every year there’s a new offense that’s supposed to make all liberals in good standing angry and “triggered.” For any year that doesn’t see the arrival of a new offense, there is a new expensive social program, some new nanny-state assurance, and we don’t have an adequate level of government until and unless it’s provided. It’s a constant influx. So we never know how many dollars per nose it takes to run a proper government.

They could avoid this reputation by setting up a “sandbox” and checking their new rules within that isolated enclave, leaving everything outside the perimeter unaffected. But they won’t.

They could avoid this reputation by going first. They could say “I want you to pay this higher tax, as I have been paying for the last two years” or “I want you to order drinks without straws, as I have been doing for the last two years.” But they won’t.

They have the reputation of ruining everything, because they want to implement something they haven’t tried themselves…everywhere, from sea to shining sea…forever…with no opt-out plan…no back-out plan…no sunset. And not even so much as a hint that it’s the right way to go.

Notice we’re not even deliberating here whether it’s good to ban drinking straws, to impose unrealistic demands on utilities to use “green” energy, to put Lara Croft in long pants, to expel college students for wearing pro-Trump hats, to tell us how many cartridges our weapons should be able to hold or what days we can water our lawns, to increase the minimum wage or marginal tax rates. It’s got to do with how the rules are imposed, not what they are. Liberals don’t like this reputation they have. I wouldn’t like it either. But I don’t feel one bit sorry for them.

New Platform

Monday, January 7th, 2019

Unless I’ve missed something, the course change Americans voted in for the next two years is

1. Presidents have to release their tax returns
2. Impeach the motherfucker
3. Highest marginal tax rate = 70%

This AOC person deserves some praise for, if nothing else, contributing the most definable, actionable and real policy change that can be discussed. For coloring outside the lines of this unworkable hatpin-tiny platform of “I/we hate Trump” that had been drawing criticism and ridicule all year.

As far as the discussion that ensues, we have had it before. The problem with that arrangement is that the nation’s mighty resources are directed by people who played no part in bringing them into existence. Socialist H.G. Wells wrote a story about this, “The Time Machine,” about the Eloi and the Morlocks, the former of whom lived “above” and enjoyed the perks and privileges of society, the latter of whom lived below, toiling away to make it happen. This is the paradox of socialism: We’re supposed to require their enlightened way of looking at things to see that this is dysfunctional, and yet once they’re in power this is exactly the world they tend to create.

It doesn’t work because the people enjoying the benefits must necessarily make the far-reaching decisions of state, but are missing a toughness that can’t be taught. Pelosi will cut off your head and you won’t even know you’re bleeding, huh. But she’s Eloi. Thrown to the wolves, her kind would NOT return, leading the pack; her class requires this membrane between the upper and the lower, to protect the charismatic types from the exigencies, pressures and shocks of the hard work they can’t do.

There was another story from much further in the past, a fable about a goose and golden eggs, by a guy named Aesop. The parable teaches us there is a difference between a desire to spend loot, and the proper respect that must be paid to whatever brought it into existence.

This new Congress looks to me like a problem that’s going to solve itself. I don’t mind the vulgar language, the so-called “strong willed women” and their readily evident lack of practical skills. What concerns me is their lack of curiosity about what it takes to make things go. But I’m picking up the vibe the rest of the American voting public is seeing the same thing I’m seeing. This is going to help Trump in 2020. A lot.Erika

I just hope these silky-girl-hand types, these Hillary-wannabe pantsuit waifs, caricatures of the type of person we shouldn’t want running anything, double-X reincarnations of Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss, don’t become fastened in the nation’s consciousness to the condition of being female. There are quite a few chicks in this country who understand hard work, cause and effect, supply and demand, who know how to strip and clean a rifle and field dress a moose. There are females who understand that when you subsidize something you get more of it, and when you tax something you get less of it. Really! Girls who have proper trigger discipline and can drive a stick shift. They exist. It’s a shame they were not ably represented in last year’s electoral results, which by and large have favored the “Panera Mom” who gets offended by every little thing, can’t parallel park, and never cultivated an intimate or mutually respectful relationship with anyone who wasn’t a mall-shopping buddy or a stuffed animal.

I’m wondering, once again, why whenever we have a “Year of the Woman” it always seems to end up representing women I don’t know. The women from whom I’m permanently estranged, by choice, the ones I seek to avoid. The sisterhood of Annie Oakley types, who at the very least have once or twice had to deal with a recoil and smelled the sweet scent of burning gunpowder, never seem to find their voice in these things. If we can find a solution to that, we will find a solution to much. Empowering malcontents, with males or females, never ends well.

Attack of the Wokescolds

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2019

From the previous:

Self-entitled strutting thin-skinned martinets who go around being “triggered” by every little thing are not responding to some kind of problem, they ARE the problem.

Ben Shapiro writes, evidently thinking about the new year along the same lines…

If we fail to abide by these new strictures, we will be attacked by the Wokescolds. These “woke” inquisitors have apparently mastered the ever-shifting dynamics of leftist power politics and are willing to scour everyone’s online history and interpersonal relationships for signs of heresy. Once such heresy is uncovered, the Wokescolds truly go to work: They demand apologies from the supposed sinners and boycotts of those who refuse to disassociate from them. They discourage decent people from speaking up — better to stay silent so as to avoid the wrath of the Wokescolds.

The Wokescolds deliberately pick marginal cases — cases on which good people may be split. This allows the Wokescolds to consistently narrow the boundaries of safety for those who disagree with them.

From the comments:

From a mythological perspective, Leftists who self-proclaim their “wokeness” are simply another manifestation of Puritans who suppressed their own shadows then projected their unwanted feelings onto easy targets. For the anti-Liberty New England Puritans, nature itself became evil. All that was instinctual and innate became despised and feared. They created the witch hunt …. literally. Today’s “woke” Puritans despise and fear their own feelings of racial superiority and their own desires to succeed financially and their own lust to associate with whomever they want. They hate themselves for being themselves, so these highly-civilized and totally dependent Leftists cast their harsh and envious judgmentalism onto the self-reliant and the liberty-loving people who understand freedom. Ultimately, just like the Puritans, they are insane.

I’m seeing another precedent, much more recent, which might be easily conflated with the latest: political correctness.

What began as a force for good (considering the number of people who really are racist, sexist and homophobic) has since become a laughing stock beacause [sic] of the ridiculous extremes to which certain neurotic ultra-liberals took it – cf. a person being ‘vertically challenged’ rather than short. This has actually undone a lot of progress made in changing bigoted attitudes, whilst making people feel guilty for enjoying anything but the blandest, most [anemic] [humor] for fear of being ‘offensive’. I mean, seriously, what’s funnier out of ‘Friends’ and ‘South Park’?

But there is a difference. What Shapiro is writing about is, first last & all in-between, a battle tactic. And its origin is in social media. He mentions the example of Louis C.K., who I guess is not buying into the gender-neutral pronouns. This cannot be allowed to stand. If Fanucci doesn’t collect all of the dough from Corleone, Tessio and Clemenza, he looks weak in the eyes of his neighborhood and so he has to exert some muscle — that’s how it works. It is a defensive maneuver. Even when it’s used offensively it’s still defensive. The Wokescolds prowl through the social media stream of the intended target looking for one of their “marginal cases,” but before that happened the target must have done something to make himself a target.

Whereas, P.C. was just a way to uplift oneself socially. Every little term, name, nickname, noun or adjective written or spoken, was a new opportunity.

Batman: And you are…?
Batgirl: Batgirl.
Batman: That’s not very PC. What about Batwoman, or Batperson?

Like that.

The Wokescolds, contrasted with preening polishing busybodies who sought to socially uplift themselves, toil away for the benefit of the movement. They’re looking for high-value military targets. After they lock onto one such target, they look for the crime.

Shapiro continues…

…while the Wokescolds may win temporary victories, those victories will surely be Pyrrhic: As it turns out, we tend to like our biology, language, politics, religion, romantic relationships, art and comedy. The Wokescolds will certainly lose. But not before they destroy a lot of people and fray the social fabric nearly beyond repair.

I dunno about that. Like any other social reformer, they only get to decide on content. It’s up to everyone else to decide whether or not to accept, and in so doing whether to add to the momentum or deplete it. We own this evolving society and all the evolving social mores within it. If disaster ultimately ensues, that’s on us.

Just. Say. No.

We Drop That Here

Tuesday, January 1st, 2019

I am proclaiming, retroactively, 2018 to be the year of gender fluidity, of non-equivalence, of “let’s pretend this thing is that other manifestly different thing.”

We drop that here. >=2019, men are men and women are women. We don’t play the “I identify as” game.

Illegal aliens are illegal. They aren’t legal.

A bad idea, expressed in a great many languages, does not become a good idea because it’s expressed in more languages.

People who work for a living and work to help others, work for their living and work to help others. People who are pieces of shit who don’t do anything, voting for redistributionist policies to show what wonderful people they are, are just pieces of shit voting away our sacred property rights.

Working for a living ≠ voting for a living.

Self-entitled strutting thin-skinned martinets who go around being “triggered” by every little thing are not responding to some kind of problem, they ARE the problem.

Assholes who launch civil actions against bakers who refuse to make gay wedding cakes, are not expanding freedom for everybody, they’re encroaching upon it.

When politicians and their acolytes fly thousands of miles on fossil-fueled jets to attend symposiums lecturing me about how I’m destroying the planet by driving to work, I’m not going to pretend they’re saving the planet. I’m going to acknowledge the plain and obvious fact that they’re fucking hypocrites and you’re going to start acknowledging that too.

I am proclaiming 2019 to be the year of A=A.